IC Portfolio: Artist

Ina Centaur,

the Artist

As an artist, I am currently best known (though perhaps only in a niche) for creating the look of the SL Shakespeare Company, a professional theatrical production company based entirely in the virtual world of Second Life. This is perhaps a unique relation in that I am also the artistic director and founder of this historic theatre company.

Poster & Playbill Design

Above: Some of my fave posters and playbills for events I have fostered from the ground-up.

I have designed a lot of posters and playbills—but I am only citing the ones I own full rights to, from the past two years. Most are original poster designs, and for posters relating to a theatrical production, the poster usually has something related to the story or a character. Every once in a while, I also create a parody poster, as in the Uncle Shakes poster (props to J.M. Flagg) or the Mei Rock Band poster (designed to look like a sissy-cheap Taiwanese Karaoke CD cover). For a full listing of playbills and other imagery I have created for SL Shakespeare Company's canonical productions, please see here.

Character Design

Above: Selected imagery from a wealth of virtual world characters designed and envisioned by Ina Centaur.

I design each character's facial appearance starting from the skin, using both RL face photos from actors and my own collection of photos to create the skin texture for use on the 3d avatars. Facial shape and eye matching comes next. When time allows (and where it is absolutely necessary), I also create wardrobe clothing. For example, prim-ruffs were non-existent until my creation of them. Usually, clothing items are procured from third party designers, and then I fit them together to create a coherent look. Many productions in similar medium suffer from characters who look generic or low-resolution eerie, but my vision in creating these characters is to have them both look like their roles and also lifelike. Through the usage of high-resolution textures and balanced-lighting, in proper attire, with the right cast, these avatars literally come to life on the virtual stage! For a full listing of imagery I have created for SL Shakespeare Company's canonical productions, please see here.

Above: Selected characters not relating to Shakespeare

I also design characters for virtual fashion purposes, my novels, and for fun. My inai Photojournal showcases some of them, as does this collection in my IC-Beauties Flickr. I have also participated as designer, host/planner, and model of several fashion shows in Second Life, such as the 100% All-RFL Fashion Show. For a full listing of skins I have created for my IC-Skins store, please see the IC-Skins subsite.

Scenic Design

Above: Selected imagery from scenic design by Ina Centaur for SL Shakespeare Company productions.

I have also designed and assembled the sets for SLSC Challenge Production's One's A Pawn of Time (OPOT) and SL Shakespeare Company's Twelfth Night Act 1 (TN Act 1). Most items in the set are custom made, although many are obtained from third parties similar to how scenic design staff in real life purchase plants used in their sets, instead of growing them from seeds and scratch. The interesting thing about these sets is that they are designed to fit the Globe Theatre stage's dimensions without modification of existing stage elements, which meant they had to be designed with deference to the Globe's characteristic two pillars—examples include purposefully-slanted walls, palm tree covers, and more! Of note, for the OPOT set, I uploaded to Second Life many book covers from physics books I own (to add a bit of obsessive detail), ripped some equations from old Physical Review Letters, and had the fun of hanging clothesline from the Globe galleries to the proscenium arch (I have a personal theory that dripping wet aerial clotheslines might have been tried at the real Globe 400 years ago, especially on hot days). The TN Act 1 sets were designed in part based on my own close reading and analysis of the play. I have also directed the play for our 2009 production.

Curator

I am also an artist-collector: I am curator (and founder) of several art galleries, including sLiterary Art & Writing Gallery, sLiterary Drawing Day Gallery, SLSC Student Art Galleries, and Primtings Museum—which features 3d interpretations of famous 2d artwork.

Architecture in Virtual Worlds

Above: Some images from selected architectural works in virtual worlds.

I design buildings from concept to virtual rendition, mostly using my own aesthetic theory of geometric forms. When I design, I am often involved in every level of the process, from idea and conception, to texture creation to custom-shape creation to laying out the actual pieces and fine-tuning them—and then, publicizing and holding events in them. But, I also specialize in meticulously researched (and precision detailed!) virtual re-constructions of historical buildings, such as the SL Globe Theatre and the Blackfriars Theatre—both of which are working theatres in the virtual world of Second Life, where all SL Shakespeare Company performances are held at. I create buildings and similar items under the name of Ina Centaur Architecture. Of my original designs, Primtings Museum is my favorite, and created with respect to functional efficiency in prim usage on Second Life.

Some of my fave...

Here is a collection of my fave (and other noteable) imagery I've created in the past two years.

Please check out my IC-Beauties flickr account for more.

Expert proficiency:

Traditional: Pencil, colored pencils, markers, pastels, water colors, calligraphy.
Digital: ArtRage, Flash, Modo, Photoshop, Poser, Premier, Second Life.
(Although there is some debate over whether digital design is considered art, I am bunching my experience in design with art.)

Brief Background

I took private art courses as a child. I've tried many art mediums, but not yet tried oils (too expensive). Later on, my art course specialized in drawing human faces, but my art classes would end before high school, due to my parents' fear that I might become an artist. Also, the time I had to draw dwindled as both schoolwork and my affairs with computer-related things took hold of my time. Nevertheless, though my parents discouraged computer-use (My father believed computers were evil, and my mother worried about them draining away my time for grades.), I was lucky enough to be a child of Silicon Valley back in the major .com era of the late 90's. To that extent, I founded an international web design company when I was barely 14, and was involved in several other .com enterprises. This gave me a good reason to pursue PHP and graphics design as a high school student, although from 1998 to 2002, I attended a rather competitive and cutthroat public high school. In college (2002-2006), other than this wry weekend project and GREPhysics.NET, I spent all my time on math and physics. It wasn't until 2007 that I returned to graphics design by creating the look of sLiterary Magazine, and then, gradually, Ina Centaur Architecture, and then the SL Shakespeare Company. These projects flourished both due to the luxury of autocracy I had in pursuing and carrying out my own projects, and also because there was everything for me to define and shape from nothing! In general, although I've taken brief stints at teaching art, I am better at creating from scratch than improving and fixing up other people's work.

My Digital Tools Listing

ArtRage
I love doodling in ArtRage.

Flash
I use Flash to enhance websites, but also as an intuitive vector drawing tool (I've never gotten the hang of Adobe Illustrator). Some examples of my sketches using Flash are my Drawing Day 2008 sketches (where I joined the international movement and drew non-stop for 24 hours!), my sLiterary Art in Black & White sketches (only some are listed, check out the Art in Black & White Gallery inworld in Second life!), and my SL Shakespeare Company Twelfth Night scenic design sketches.

Modo
For photo-reference texturing and organic-sculpting, I use Luxology Modo. I create skin textures for 3d figures starting in Modo, with fine-tuning in Photoshop. I also use Modo to create sculpted prims for use in Second Life.

Photoshop
I have had experience with Photoshop since seventh grade via Photoshop 4.0. I've used almost every version after that except CS and CS2, staying with 7.0 until CS3. Although there are many features I like about CS4 (as of March 2009), I have not yet adopted CS4 for my main work. When I'm working with digital graphics, I use Photoshop on a daily basis—anything from color-adjustments to blocking out layouts. Almost all digital graphics in my portfolio have been through Photoshop at some point.

Poser
Nowadays, I primarily use Poser to create animations for Second Life. However, I have used Poser, in the past, to create and render realistic 3d figures, and also to create a theatrical performance (a weekend project back when I was 17, and taking AP English).

Premier
I use Premier to edit, greenscreen, and add basic transitional effects to movies I filmed. I usually use Premier with a combination of SUPER and other media converters to distribute in a format and filesize-friendly way to the web.

Second Life
Much of the art I have been focusing on in the past two years have been "based" in Second Life. I am familiar with all aspects of Second Life, from texturing to building to scripting to shopping and fashion supermodeling to holding events, and running stores and major malls, and to social networking—my inworld friends list has more than 1,000 contacts.